Sentenced to life
by Madhumalati
Summary: Fifty sentences for the 85 pairing, although 10K insists on popping up. Shounenai, obviously. Fifth: the 10Konly chapter. Sixth: A'mael requested.
1. Chapter 1

_**Sentenced to life**_

A/N: I found five lists of these words, so this is one; I'll get to the others eventually. Warning: POVs do not change on schedule. Also, the Gaiden is here, hence the ghastly pun in the title. (10K is too adorable and it's the same pairing really, so it's not cheating, she said virtuously.) And one sentence in here is 98 words. Appalling.

_**#1 Air: **_

'This,' Kenren declared, 'is incredibly boring,' and as he discreetly dragged Tenpou out of the meeting by one arm, Tenpou reflected dryly that Kenren was apparently determined to be a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

_**#2 Apples: **_

Hakkai cut his apples into eight neat pieces, peeled them, cut as close to the core as possible and kept a plate to deposit the seeds on; Gojyo bit into them with great relish, took large bites and tossed the core over his shoulder in the general direction of the waste-basket – it was hard to tell whose behaviour annoyed the other more.

_**#3 Beginning: **_

He placed a gentle hand on the ugly scar that spanned Hakkai's stomach, waiting for the familiar flinch, and when none came his only thought through the overwhelming relief was _well, that's a beginning_.

_**#4 Bugs: **_

Once, when they slept in the open, Gojyo whined incessantly about the bugs before he dragged Hakkai from the campfire to a more secluded place, where they bantered and fooled around all night; and in the morning, when he loudly insisted that he'd only taken him away because the bugs didn't bite away from the river, Hakkai smiled indulgently and passed him the salve for insect bites when Goku wasn't looking.

_**#5 Coffee: **_

Once, Hakkai greeted Gojyo with a fresh cup of coffee made to his taste; he was horrified by his friend's crumpled, near-tearful expression until Gojyo shakily explained that nobody had ever made him coffee in the morning before, and never the way he liked it.

_**#6 Dark: **_

All cats are grey in the dark, he remembered, and decided that in the dark, red hair was nearly black and limiters didn't glow either, and maybe they could just pretend for a while, together.

_**#7 Despair: **_

Tenpou despaired of changing anything about the world he hated, Kenren knew that; but it was a controlled, icy, furious sort of despair, which only fuelled his ambition and sharpened his edge.

_**#8 Door: **_

Opening Tenpou's door was usually a dangerous business, and not just because of how dangerous the man inside was; he was fairly sure that Death by Cascade of Assorted Things was not how he wanted to go.

_**#9 Drink: **_

'Damn it, it's _my _bed too,' he insisted when he came home drunk; but he found himself spending the night on the floor anyway, because Hakkai was pretty freakin' scary when he smiled like that.

_**#10 Duty: **_

At some point, Hakkai had become cook, launderer, healer and all-round mother of their little group; he relished that duty, Gojyo knew; it kept him busy and kept him useful, and that was the closest Hakkai had allowed himself to come to happiness back then.

_**#11 Earth: **_

The scent of earth after rain was one he'd always loved; he still loved it, for a different reason.

_**#12 End: **_

'We've been here before,' Gojyo said suddenly after a long silence as they lay curled together; Hakkai wondered if it was wishful thinking, because the last thing he'd said had been 'Gojyo, do you think that death is the end?'

_**#13 Fall: **_

He hated seeing Hakkai in the fall; there seemed too much colour around him, and it only brought out how painfully inconspicuous and faded he attempted to make himself.

_**#14 Fire: **_

Fire had become his definition of Gojyo: blazing temper, fiery hair and eyes, passion, crackling intensity – and the flame at the edge of his cigarette, a silent reminder of his presence even when darkness separated them.

_**#15 Flexible: **_

'I recall your saying you weren't flexible enough to work under just anyone,' Kenren murmured; Tenpou laughed, waved a hand and said he wasn't just anyone, and that was that as far as that discussion went.

_**#16 Flying: **_

It was the nth time he was watching the familiar meal-time runaround; Gojyo and Goku grabbing food from each other's plates, Gojyo's insults flying even faster and smoother than his fists, his outraged yelp as a bullet streaked between what Sanzo fondly called his antennae; really, there was no need for him to feel a sudden wash of tranquil happiness and this odd feeling of……belonging, as if something long-repressed within him had taken wing at that moment.

_**#17 Food: **_

The food was clearly horrible, Gojyo knew from Hakkai's polite expression that it was; and if he'd cherished any hopes to the contrary, they were dispelled when Hakkai gently but firmly chivvied him out of the kitchen and did the cooking every single day after that.

_**#18 Foot: **_

If there was one thing about Hakkai that Gojyo envied, it was his ability to talk for any length of time without sticking his foot in his mouth.

_**#19 Grave: **_

Gojyo was boyish when he slept, sensual when he flirted, ridiculous when he played with Goku, and these were moods Hakkai knew well and adjusted to instinctively; but when he was grave and vulnerable and uncharacteristically serious he was almost beautiful, and he never knew how to deal with that.

_**#20 Green: **_

He found that Gojyo hung-over was an endlessly entertaining spectacle; there was something very adorable about how sulky and whiny and childish he became, although he had to admit that pale green wasn't really a very nice colour on his skin.

_**#21 Head: **_

It wasn't that Gojyo was unintelligent, far from it; he simply had a regrettable tendency to lose his head – or his temper – which was often a source of vast amusement.

_**#22 Hollow: **_

His smiles were hollow, his eyes were empty, and every word he said made Gojyo want to punch him in the mouth just to see something come alive inside that pretty shell of what had once been a man.

_**#23 Honour: **_

For someone who arguably had the longest list of vices even among their none-too-virtuous group, Gojyo was probably the one with the deepest sense of honour.

_**#24 Hope: **_

Hope was one thing Hakkai didn't have; and though Gojyo couldn't boast of much either, he found that he had trained himself to be optimistic, to balance him out, and at some point it became automatic.

_**#25 Light: **_

He didn't know how Hakkai did it, but the flash of light off that monocle served as a more reliable warning signal than a shout or a blow.

**_#26 Lost:_**

For somebody who lived in a virtual avalanche of junk, and who never quite knew what he was wearing or where exactly he was, Kenren thought it was an amazing talent that Tenpou could find any of his books within a minute, no matter how deep in the mess it had lost itself; that was his first indicator of the complexities of the man.

_**#27 Metal: **_

Gojyo in conversation was like metal forged in loving hands; clean and honest, bright and sharp with an unexpected edge; and it was the keenness of that very edge that cut away his pretences, sliced apart his masks and forced him to reveal the truth.

_**#28 New: **_

After every fight, Hakkai mended their clothes, no matter how tired he was; worked meticulously and ceaselessly until all trace of damage was gone, as if that would undo the fight itself; which would have been tragic if it hadn't been so endearing.

_**#29 Old: **_

It would be nice, Hakkai thought, to find out if Gojyo's hair would remain that flame-red, improbably vibrant colour, or if it would fade into a dark pink, or merely become shot through with silver; to be there when Gojyo squalled and sulked and complained about growing old, and laugh at him.

_**#30 Peace: **_

'This is peaceful,' Hakkai said happily as they drove one day, and Sanzo knew better than to believe he was talking about the drive, not with those two bickering in the back-seat like a pair of insanely loud toddlers.

_**#31 Poison: **_

It was very hard not to hate her, not when he could see her insidious hold over his best friend, seeping into his every insecurity, every action, every fear like poison.

_**#32 Pretty: **_

Hakkai's chi was pretty, just like he was, bright and harmless-looking; but like him, it could both heal and kill.

_**#33 Rain: **_

On rainy nights he watched Hakkai silently, and didn't know whether to mourn for what Hakkai had lost or be glad for what he had gained.

_**#34 Regret: **_

A fortunate side-effect of having no regrets was that at some point, it became impossible for him not to be happy at least some of the time.

_**#35 Roses: **_

Just once, he tried to give Hakkai roses; the converted youkai gave him one of his deceptively bland smiles and courteously requested that he not be wooed like a barmaid, and the ice in his eyes was far more convincing than any words he could have used.

_**#36 Secret: **_

At first, he pursued the elusive marshal, trying to discover his every secret, thinking that that was what he wanted: but soon he realised that Tenpou was utterly sincere about keeping his secrets, and would tell him exactly what he had earned the right to know, and not a word more; and he could respect that, because he was the same.

_**#37 Snakes: **_

Hakkai was very pretty, of course he knew that, with his eye for beauty; but danger lay beneath, like a coiled snake, a blade, or a storm waiting to break.

_**#38 Snow: **_

As they trudged through the mountains, Hakkai looked at the snow, thinking about Yakumo and wondering what would happen if and when he, too, finally snapped; as if he knew what Hakkai was thinking because maybe he had been thinking the same thing Gojyo laid a warm, heavy hand on his shoulder and whispered 'You won't' in his ear, and Hakkai smiled distantly and covered that hand with his own, thinking that if it had to be someone, please let it not be Gojyo, because that would mean two deaths, and he felt terribly selfish for the thought.

_**#39 Solid: **_

They wound up back-to-back in battle, protecting each other with metal and chi, and the feel of that solid, steady warmth at a vulnerable point was both blissfully comforting and annoyingly distracting.

_**#40 Spring: **_

Eternal spring was boring – flowers always blooming and everything always picture-perfect; he wanted storms, rain, lightning, and clarity and integrity, and Kenren was all that and much more.

_**#41 Stable: **_

He definitely wasn't the most mentally stable person Gojyo knew, but Gojyo had never found safety a very attractive thing, and besides, Hakkai was the only stable thing he wanted in his life, and if that meant they had to support each other to not shatter, then so be it; he would do what was necessary.

_**#42 Strange: **_

'You're a very strange man,' Tenpou told him contemplatively, and Kenren was caught so off-guard by the statement that any sarcastic remarks he might have made about pots and kettles flew clean out of his mind.

_**#43 Summer: **_

Even in the height of summer, Hakkai could sleep peacefully in his black undershirt and long pyjamas while Gojyo sweated and tossed on his bed and was grumpy in the mornings; was the man made of ice?

_**#44 Taboo: **_

Hakkai once remarked, laughing darkly, that of the two of them, Gojyo would probably be considered less taboo; it was years later, when he finally learned the whole truth of who Kanan had been, that he understood that statement.

_**#45 Ugly: **_

There was always an ugly twist to his mouth when he spoke of his childhood; it was the only time he could ever even imagine anything ugly about Gojyo.

_**#46 War: **_

They had a brief, wordless, bitterly determined war over cigarette etiquette in the house; it was about the time when he began looking for an ashtray _before_ he lit up that Gojyo realised he'd lost rather badly.

_**#47 Water: **_

Hakkai knew from experience that running fingers through Gojyo's hair was like placing them under flowing water, and every time Gojyo tied his hair up, he wondered how it could defy gravity like that.

_**#48 Welcome: **_

From the very beginning, Gojyo treated him as if they had known each other all their lives, taking all sorts of liberties and being as relaxed and teasing as an old friend. From almost anyone else it would have been uncomfortably intrusive, but Hakkai knew that this was just his way of saying he was welcome there.

_**#49 Winter: **_

Gojyo said hated the cold: he shivered and huddled and even stopped talking in his misery – even his hair didn't seem as bouncy; but when he used the excuse to cuddle shamelessly with Hakkai whenever the opportunity arose and he didn't seem to be shivering too much the healer began to wonder just how devious the redhead really was.

_**#50 Wood: **_

It should have been easy to read Hakkai's thoughts while playing poker, but it wasn't; while Gojyo could unravel the most wooden façade he was helpless against someone whose eyes said exactly what he wanted them to say.

A/N: Do let me know which ones were your favourite in your review; I might expand on them in later chapters. But God, these list things are like pulling teeth. Without anaesthetic.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: lookit, 125-word sentence, and it's actually grammatical! Is that a record or what?

**_#1 Walking: _**

'Walking away is not an option,' Hakkai commented almost casually, 'we're bound too tight; at this point, we'll have to work things out or kill each other trying.'

_**#2 Waltz: **_

'Let's dance,' Gojyo whispered with a sly grin, which grew larger as Hakkai stood up with a smile, and then turned crooked with shock when Hakkai placed a firm hand on his waist and replied straight-faced, 'Why, Gojyo, who ever told you you could lead?'

_**#3 Wishes: **_

Fairytales lied; even if they succeeded in their quest, there would be no return to a happy childhood, no resurrection of lost lives, no granting of the heart's wishes, no undoing of all the scars that wound over body and soul; all they could do was hold on to what was, what was real, and fight tooth and nail for it – and perhaps those wishes would be unnecessary after all.

_**#4 Wonder: **_

Gojyo would brag incessantly about all the women he'd had, given the slightest chance, and he reacted like a scalded cat to the slightest speculation on his orientation; but occasionally, when Gojyo thought he wasn't paying attention, Hakkai could feel those crimson eyes fixed on him – and he wondered.

**_#5 Worry: _**

Hakkai worried about them all like the faithful mother-figure he was; and Gojyo fought harder than he ever had before so he could cover the overprotective little idiot's back when Hakkai was too busy looking after everyone else.

_**#6 Whimsy: **_

To those who didn't know him Gojyo was a creature of whimsy, changing with the wind and as about as unpredictable; to those he allowed closer it was easy to see the fixed, iron-hard principles that determined everything he did.

_**#7 Waste: **_

Hakkai fought the way he did everything else, calmly, rationally, without a single wasted movement; his was the elegance of understatement where Gojyo's was the sensuality of absolute confidence.

_**#8 Whiskey and rum: **_

'Sorry, but aren't you already taken?' the cute waitress said, her eyes darting to where Hakkai had been seated next to Gojyo at the counter; whereupon he realised that while he might enjoy drinking whiskey and rum, the same drink up his nose was no fun at all, really.

_**#9 War: **_

After a while, he could always tell when the constant ebb and flow of Hakkai's internal conflicts accelerated into a war; the shade and shape of his eyes flickered briefly and erratically, and only someone who had a sharp eye and knew exactly what to look for would find it.

**_#10 Weddings: _**

They witnessed a Christian wedding ceremony once, dragged to the festivities by an enthusiastic Goku; Gojyo could hear Hakkai whispering the vows under his breath, and in the emptiness and bone-deep loss in those pretty green eyes he realised exactly why and when and for whose sake Hakkai had memorised them – and the pain in his own heart grew that much sharper.

**_#11 Birthday: _**

By common consent, they ignored both their birthdays; neither of them were particularly proud of being born.

_**#12 Blessing: **_

'Ch…I don't care,' was the entirety of Sanzo's response, and Hakkai knew him well enough to be satisfied with it.

_**#13 Bias: **_

He had struggled against the crushing burden of bias for so long that to meet people who didn't care was like water to a dying man.

_**#14 Burning: **_

He couldn't stand to meet those deep crimson eyes, because the raw, open heat in them made him feel as if he were burning merely from that glance; but Gojyo gripped his chin, forced him to look into that flame again – and blissfully, deliriously, he burned.

_**#15 Breathing:**_

Several times a night, he woke up just to see if the guy he'd picked up off the street was still breathing, he lay so still and pale and breathed so quiet and shallow; and every time, he laid a careful ear to his nose and until he was reassured, he couldn't breathe either; he had risked too much of his self in rescuing him to not care whether he made it.

_**#16 Breaking: **_

Hakkai had become something of a habit to him; to find meals made, thoughts anticipated, weak points covered, memories shared, affection given – by the time he realised how deeply they had drawn each other into their lives, he was too far gone to even think of breaking it.

_**#17 Belief: **_

He realised very quickly that he had done Hakkai no great favour by saving him that night; and when his quick mind began to draw the inescapable conclusions, he clung to the belief that Hakkai didn't hate him for it, because that would have destroyed even his twice-shattered heart.

**_#18 Balloon: _**

Gojyo spent an entire evening teaching Hakkai and Goku to make balloon animals; they had a whole rack of animals when they finished, which delighted the town's children, who received the majority (although Goku wasn't terribly pleased with the monkey he found in the back seat the next morning).

_**#19 Balcony: **_

'Out on the balcony, please,' Hakkai murmured without even looking up from his book, just before Gojyo removed a cigarette from the pack; but even though Gojyo never extended that courtesy to anyone else, the redhead had already begun to amble in that direction – leaving Goku to laugh and resist the urge to make yet another comment about their marital status.

_**#20 Bane: **_

Order was the bane of Gojyo's existence, just as it was the centre of Hakkai's; it turned their daily lives into a series of small battles that both were good-natured enough to ignore immediately after they were finished.

**_#21 Quiet: _**

There were times when Hakkai shrank into himself, quiet and unremarkable, trying his best to disappear, to not be seen; and once he realised that those were the times that Hakkai needed most to be reminded of his existence, he made it a point to spend those times with him, joke and laugh or offer silent companionship until the healer broke out of his shell again.

**_#22 Quirks: _**

What amazed others about the two of them was not how radically different they were, but how neatly they manoeuvred around each other's quirks.

_**#23 Question: **_

There were things they did not speak of; sisters and mothers and brothers and scars – asking questions invited them, and such things were to be spoken of when the one who had experienced them wanted to; and while they were living in close quarters, there were some kinds of privacies that everyone was entitled to.

**_#24 Quarrel: _**

Listening in on their quarrels was infinitely fascinating for Goku; Gojyo would become steadily louder and ruder and Hakkai quieter and more polite; at some point the sounds would stop altogether, after which one of them would storm out of the room, only to return later; and in the morning they would be back to normal, as if nothing at all had happened.

**_#25 Quitting: _**

Hakkai never asked him to, for which he was more than grateful.

_**#26 Jump: **_

He stared down at the river far below as they drove over a bridge, wondering in a dispassionate sort of way exactly how badly it would hurt if he simply……and then he saw furious crimson in the rear-view mirror, realised that he had neglected to conceal himself as thoroughly as he was accustomed, and rectified the error.

_**#27 Jester: **_

Gojyo had appointed himself the jester of their little group, and he probably deserved the title for his witty, cutting sarcasm; but even his practiced eloquence fell before Hakkai's insidiously indirect brand of banter.

**_#28 Jousting: _**

'What the hell kinda word is that, anyway?' Gojyo said, disgruntled; 'Don't quote the damn encyclopaedia at me!' And Hakkai laughed and laughed, and did it again just to annoy him.

_**#29 Jewel: **_

He slipped off the monocle, gently and with as much significance as if it were a more essential covering – and in some ways, it was his most effective shield – and laid it aside carefully, as if it were a priceless jewel, before reaching for him again.

_**#30 Just: **_

The difference between them, Hakkai realised, was that Gojyo was fair and he was just; Hakkai would never have tried to save a murderer, set aside his pride and preconceptions to attempt the redemption of a child-killer.

**_#31 Smirk: _**

The first time he lost spectacularly at cards to Hakkai, he passed it off as a fluke; the second time was an accident, and after that it was only Gojyo's bad luck, really; but the longer they played together and the more amicable and polite Hakkai became (and the more his eye sparkled with glee) he realised that there were many different ways to smirk.

_**#32 Sorrow: **_

Sorrow was an old friend, and one who visited often……they dealt with it in their own ways, often separately, because that was their nature, and occasionally together, because that was their weakness.

_**#33 Stupidity: **_

'Listen, kappa, and listen well,' Sanzo growled, gun pointed squarely at Gojyo's forehead, 'I don't give a damn what goes on between you and Hakkai, but if your innate stupidity asserts itself and succeeds in disturbing him or distracting him……' the gun inched just that much closer, 'I…will…not…miss, do you hear me?'

Which, Gojyo reflected, was probably Sanzo's version of telling him not to hurt Hakkai; and the very idea of the monk being protective was enough to keep him in smirks for the rest of the week.

**_#34 Serenade: _**

Gojyo couldn't sing, they both knew it, but his sensual whisper in Hakkai's ears was a sweeter song than the most accomplished serenade.

**_#35 Sarcasm: _**

It was absolutely delightful to sit back and watch Gojyo being Gojyo, sarcastic and quick-witted, with absolutely no mercy for anyone's feelings, including his own; he treated conversation as a battle, exactly like Hakkai did, and knowing that Hakkai himself was more or less exempt from Gojyo's ire when the redhead got going was a warm fuzzy feeling all to itself.

_**#36 Sordid: **_

Really, it was a bad cliché; the knight in shining armour rescues the fair, well, knight from certain death and heals him; except that Gojyo always thought that, considering the sordid, shallow excuse for a life he had allowed himself until then, that dreamy fog of purposelessness, that lonely, numb existence, he could as well say that he had been the one rescued that night.

**_#37 Soliloquy: _**

Quietly, he said 'I love you', again and again, when he was sure nobody could hear him, trying to find the tone and inflection he could use that would best convey everything he wanted to put into those few syllables.

_**#38 Sojourn: **_

'I trust your sojourn went well?' Hakkai asked with a freezingly polite smile on his face, which warned Gojyo enough that he went and looked the word up; at which point he realised exactly how stupid he was.

**_#39 Share: _**

He came down late for dinner to find that Goku had eaten all the food; later, Hakkai handed him his share after the monkey went to bed with a smile and without an explanation.

_**#40 Solitary: **_

Gojyo thrived on people, on society, conversation, night life and careless banter; and Hakkai knew better than to take it personally when he referred to the jeep as solitary confinement.

_**#41 Nowhere: **_

Half-breeds, sinners, outcast; they belonged nowhere; except, perhaps, with each other.

_**#42 Neutral: **_

The jeep was neutral territory – _no_ flirting, _no_ suggestive comments, and certainly no……fooling around……of any kind whatsoever, Gojyo, are you listening to me? – Hakkai had put his foot down as firmly on that matter as he usually put it on the accelerator, at least until Gojyo decided that he was going to be creative at interpreting the phrase _neutral territory_ (Goku _eww_ed and Sanzo hit him on the head – not that that stopped him for long); and by the time Gojyo succeeded in annoying, wheedling and threatening Sanzo into switching places with him so he could get better access to the driver, Hakkai was even beginning to enjoy it, which probably proved that Gojyo had indeed rubbed off on him in more ways than one.

_**#43 Nuance: **_

It wasn't until he saw Gojyo toying distractedly with the fall of crimson across his face and absently thought _oh, he's nervous_ that he realised that he knew every nuance of Gojyo's expressions and habits – and began to wonder why he'd catalogued them with such care.

_**#44 Near:**_

He pushed everyone away, stubborn and reacting to deep, old wounds; perhaps it was not surprising that when someone was finally allowed near, he clung to them like a drowning man.

**_#45 Natural: _**

It was years later that he realised the depth of Gojyo's sneakiness; he had conditioned Hakkai subtly, as if he were a frightened animal, patiently convincing him that such touches signified warmth, comfort, affection, until Gojyo's touch was natural – even expected – in a way no one else's was.

**_#46 Horizon: _**

Looking into the ever-retreating horizon while he was driving was a favourite, if slightly melancholic pastime of Hakkai's – and meeting sly red eyes in the back seat was another.

_**#47 Valiant: **_

He had a willingness to fight for people that amazed Hakkai, who for all his accommodating behaviour was ruthlessly selfish when it came to giving of himself; he could summon up fanciful adjectives like noble, valiant, defiant, but the truth of the matter was that Gojyo loved, easily, deeply and truly, and he would do anything when it came to those he loved; and in that, they were not so different.

_**#48 Virtuous: **_

The very idea would have sent both of them into gales of hysterical laughter.

_**#49 Victory: **_

He had been planning and waiting and wanting for so long that the whole thing turned into some sort of game, an involved, complex, layered play that would, if played correctly, mean everything; victory was essential, because if he lost, he lost Hakkai.

_**#50 Defeat: **_

Not, Hakkai thought, that this kind of defeat was one he minded.


	3. Chapter 3

_**#1 Motion: **_

Gojyo was always in motion, restless and impatient; sometimes it made his head hurt to watch him fret when he was forced to remain still, and sometimes it amused him.

_**#2 Cool: **_

It was strange how quickly Hakkai could calm Gojyo down, take the edge off his anger with just a few words.

_**#3 Young: **_

For all his worldly-wise ways and street-smarts, Gojyo had a strange innocence, a naïve belief in the goodness of people; it made Hakkai realise just how young he was, and made him feel older and more jaded somehow.

_**#4 Last: **_

Gojyo once inquired what his reaction would be if Gojyo was killed on the journey: 'Gojyo, I don't really want to discuss this at all,' Hakkai said, dangerously soft; which was far more of an answer than Hakkai needed to give; that was the last time they ever spoke of it, but Gojyo never forgot.

_**#5 Wrong: **_

He gave up on arguing with Hakkai, because the man never admitted it when he was wrong, which was too damn rare for Gojyo anyway.

_**#6 Gentle: **_

Hakkai's fingers were always gentle when they healed his wounds, feather-light touches of chi and skin.

_**#7 One: **_

'I don't share,' Hakkai said very evenly, 'if you are to have any part of me, I will be the only one you have anything of,' and Gojyo agreed, still dazed from disbelief and joy.

_**#8 Thousand: **_

A thousand miles they have journeyed together, and more, and Gojyo thinks that the proverb is wrong, so wrong, because if he had taken that single step and gone on past the dying man on the road, none of this would ever have happened.

_**#9 King: **_

When he was in the mood, Gojyo could spin long, convoluted, suspenseful and fantastical tales of ghosts and kings and quests and fair maidens; it called strongly to the storyteller in him, and often made him wonder what Gojyo could have become if he had received the care and love he deserved.

_**#10 Learn: **_

Hakkai was a teacher, and a good one, but he didn't share Gojyo's talent of keeping himself supple, relaxed, able to accept joy and sorrow and move on; and so, quietly, without the half-breed noticing, he learned.

_**#11 Blur: **_

He only has to close his eyes to remember that day when Hakkai rescued him from Banri's gang of thugs; the youkai, brutal and beautiful, merely a blur, and blood everywhere, and thinking that he didn't know this man, not even a little.

_**#12 Wait:**_

He was unused to having someone waiting for him; it was always a shock to enter and find the house lit; to feel a different presence in a place where he had always been alone – even when there had been others there with him.

_**#13 Change: **_

It was when he slipped his limiters off willingly for the first time that he realised the inevitability of it all; once again, he had bound himself to another, with potentially equally disastrous consequences, once again made himself vulnerable to loss, once again made the decision to kill; once again, he loved, even if it was slightly different this time – how ironic – it seemed that people didn't really change after all; youkai or human, Gonou or Hakkai, sister and soul-mate or dearest friend, he had made the same choices again.

_**#14 Command: **_

Some found it strange that a man like Kenren, who was supposedly irresponsible, erratic and rebellious, had been given command – and even stranger, won the loyalty of those who followed him; but the man had a dangerous kind of charisma to him that drew people irresistibly.

_**#15 Hold: **_

He soon discovered that Gojyo would rather hold him than be held; he didn't know why until he had to leave him once to answer the door and returned to see his hands clutch restlessly, frantically at the sheets, eyes shut tight as if he were trying to recapture something.

_**#16 Believe: **_

'This is very hard to believe,' Gojyo said shakily, arms vice-tight around Hakkai, and the healer decided mentally that that insecurity had to be the first thing to go.

_**#17 Vision: **_

'I can't cleanse the past; that's not for me to do,' and he stroked a fingertip down Hakkai's palm in a wiping motion, replacing the vision of blood with hot, painful life, 'but maybe I can show you that not all the memories you have of these hands have to be bad.'

_**#18 Attention: **_

'Really, must you have the attention span of a flea?' Hakkai asked him once, even his infinite store of patience running low; 'Sorry, just admiring the view,' Gojyo leered in reply as his eyes fixed immodestly on a passer-by: without even looking at him, Sanzo delivered a fan to the head for the comment, and almost, almost grinned when Hakkai made him his favourite meal for dinner in unspoken thanks while Gojyo glowered mutely.

_**#19 Soul: **_

In the orphanage it had always been drilled into him that all men were sinners by default, tainted souls and impure bodies, that there was only one way to erase those sins and purify his soul, and that was to adhere to the laws and morality of the one true God; it seemed strange to him that only in two forbidden loves had he found anything that came close to redemption, to meaning, to life.

_**#20 Picture: **_

He was down to loose change once, during a streak of particularly bad luck, when Hakkai slid smoothly into the seat next to his, tsked a few times at his bad play and proceeded to cheerfully fleece everyone at the table, looking the very picture of innocence, while Gojyo lit up and smirked for all he was worth while draping an arm possessively over his shoulder.

_**#21 Fool: **_

Hakkai always tried to fool everyone, misguiding, misdirecting, manipulating – it took Gojyo a while to realise that it was an attempt to hide those truths from himself.

_**#22 Mad:**_

The danger was always there, of course; perhaps a mixed ancestry or a transformation would not be sufficient to hold the madness at bay; perhaps the things they saw and experienced and had to do would chip away too quickly at what remained whole within them; perhaps, perhaps…… and so they lived for the moment, because there was no guarantee that the next one would not be the last.

_**#23 Child: **_

Gojyo had the most curious fixation on children; when he thought the others weren't looking, he would sometimes go play with the children in the town, swinging a baseball bat with great relish – Hakkai could probably guess why he did that, but that would be an invasion of Gojyo's privacy, and he was more polite than that.

_**#24 Now: **_

Having loved only two people in his life, there was always the urge to compare them, then and now, Kanan and Gojyo, green and crimson – but Hakkai was wise enough to move on from the past, even if he was not wise enough to leave it behind, and he never did.

_**#25 Shadow:**_

When he wanted to, Hakkai could melt into the shadows, be inconspicuous and unnoticed and quietly deadly; it was both innate and learned.

_**#26 Goodbye: **_

Gojyo never said goodbye when he left; goodbyes implied that there was a possibility of not meeting again, they implied a readiness to let go, a willingness to be apart, they implied that he couldn't feel Hakkai's presence wherever he went even if they weren't with each other, and that was, very simply, not true and not possible.

_**#27 Hide: **_

It wasn't so much that Gojyo hid what he was feeling, it was only that Hakkai never chose to acknowledge it – but he discarded that thought immediately; it was too unlike his friend.

_**#28 Fortune: **_

Fortune favoured Hakkai, in cards and dice and other games of chance, and his skill and analytical mind made up the rest; and he began to quote the old adage about luck in cards before Gojyo silenced him with a kiss.

_**#29 Safe: **_

He didn't quite know at what point he had equated Gojyo to safety; it was over pretty much before he realised it had begun.

_**#30 Ghost: **_

They had their ghosts, families lost and killed, memories linked to red and rain and strangling, beloved hands; perhaps they would never be exorcised, for scars never disappeared; but they could find sanctuary, at least, and that was something.

_**#31 Book: **_

'There's not a chance in hell I'm reading any of those,' Gojyo protested when Hakkai handed him an old philosophical treatise; but he had no objections to lying in Hakkai's lap and listening while the youkai read out to him.

_**#32 Eye: **_

There were things that Kenren and Tenpou saw eye-to-eye upon, of course, as was normal in any relationship, and when they disagreed their arguments were loud, expressive and of varying length and venom; so much so that those who didn't believe that they were lovers took them for mortal enemies.

_**#33 Never: **_

Walking on ice was apparently something Hakkai had never done before, and Gojyo used the opportunity to drape himself all over him all of the morning; in the evening, he saw Hakkai strolling competently across the road to the tree Hakuryuu was perched in, and had to laugh.

_**#34 Sing: **_

Gojyo sang in the shower; not very tunefully, not very rhythmically, but it was obvious he enjoyed it, and that delight always made him pause outside the door, shake his head and smile ruefully.

_**#35 Sudden: **_

He would have said the realisation was sudden, because until the moment he said it aloud he was quite convinced of the contrary, but when he did, he realised that it had been coming a long time now.

_**#36 Stop: **_

'Stop,' he whimpered desperately, overwhelmed by the sensation of too many hands, the two caressing him now, the two that had touched him before, the one that had ripped him apart, memory and reality colliding in agony; but Gojyo didn't, patient and loving and far, far more perceptive than Hakkai was: and when he finally broke through the fog of the past and became one with the present – waking up, almost, to warm callused hands and intense crimson eyes and soothing silky words and careful lightning-touches – it was the sweetest sensation in the world.

_**#37 Time: **_

Gojyo had long ago lost count of how many times he had almost told him, almost touched him, almost held him, almost, almost……only to back away, because it wasn't time.

_**#38 Wash: **_

'I'll wash it out,' Hakkai offered diffidently the first time they came from battle blood-stained, and that was how he took the first step to becoming absolutely indispensable to all three of them.

_**#39 Torn: **_

He watched Hakkai and Sanzo draw closer when it rained, huddling together instinctively like wounded animals, and was torn between wanting to understand that pain and praying he never did.

_**#40 History: **_

He read old histories and books on military strategy, and on occasion talked about them with what Gojyo thought was suspicious familiarity and expertise; when he asked Hakkai whether he'd ever been in the army and neglected to tell them, the healer only _ahaha_'d and said maybe, in a previous life.

_**#41 Power: **_

Sanzo might be the leader, Goku the strongest fighter; but Hakkai was the mediator, the glue in their fragile little group, the one who kept it together and planned and thought things out and got them out of tight spots and kept them from going at each others' throats; he was the soul of the group, he held the true power, and all three of them knew it.

_**#42 Bother:**_

Cleaning was such a bother; he was aware of the location of the objects necessary to his work, which was the point of organisation, and thus knowing, he felt no need to maintain some standard of neatness that had been arbitrarily decided by traditional societal mores and rearrange items that were perfectly fine where they were in any oth–

Whereupon Kenren hit him with a large dictionary, and Tenpou meekly set to work.

_**#43 God: **_

Neither of them believed, not really, not anymore, but sometimes things had to be accepted whether one wanted to believe in them or not, and right about the time they saw Kanzeon for the first time they were strongly reminded why they hadn't _wanted_ to believe.

_**#44 Wall: **_

There were places in Hakkai's mind where no one was allowed, not even Gojyo; walled off and secure, the worst (and sometimes, the best) of him remained carefully locked up.

_**#45 Naked: **_

'Damn it, don't hide from me!' and Gojyo ripped off the monocle, furious; in that moment, he felt more naked than he would have if the redhead had stripped him.

_**#46 Drive: **_

It was accepted that as long as he wasn't injured, Hakkai was the driver; Sanzo took an unexpected liking to driving after defeating Kami-sama, but his style had Hakuryuu transforming defensively into dragon-form every time the monk approached the driver's seat; his glare told them all to keep quiet about it, but Gojyo teased him anyway.

_**#47 Harm: **_

Everyday, he tried to make them believe he was harmless; smiling, eyes crinkled shut, hands open-palmed and loose, amicable and good-natured; it would have worked, except that Gojyo knew that the smile concealed many things, that closed eyes guarded unrestrained emotion, and Hakkai open-palmed was a hundred times more dangerous than Gojyo was.

_**#48 Precious: **_

Gojyo tried never to attach significance to anything, to make anything indispensable, because whatever he found, he lost; but Hakkai was too precious to let go of – even the thought was unbearable.

_**#49 Hunger: **_

Hakkai cooked, and cooked, and there was always a faintly bitter taste to everything of his that Gojyo ate, because while Hakkai's food filled his stomach he did nothing, _nothing_, about the hunger in his eyes.

_**#50 Need: **_

'I must never need anything,' Tenpou said; 'I may desire, but desire is controllable, is ephemeral, while the truth of need is that it shapes the one who needs; it is impossible to change or control or erase – it is a dangerous thing, it ties one to life, destroys objectivity, warps rationality, and so I must not need…' and all the while, his hands roamed restlessly over Kenren, proving him a liar in silent indictment.

A/N: thanks to sohmamomiji, my sole repeat reviewer (sigh. I did expect this to be better received). There will be one more 85/10K, and the last one will be mostly 10K if I have anything to say about it – it's also my personal favourite and thus reserved for last place, which should give me time to finish it and polish it.


	4. Chapter 4

_**#1 Comfort: **_

Hakkai had never been a very physical person; despite all his passion, he was reserved and rarely allowed others to be that close to him; as a result, it took him rather longer than normal to not freeze when Gojyo touched him, whether deliberately or accidentally, and even longer to realise that they were intended to comfort or cheer, that the redhead was just trying to be a friend.

_**#2 Kiss: **_

The first one was an accident, just a brush of Gojyo's lips against his temple as the redhead turned over in his sleep; the second one was probably an accident too, Hakkai concluded, when Gojyo took a swig of water from a bottle Hakkai had just drunk from; and the third……and the fourth……in retrospect, he realised he had been quite blind, right from the beginning.

_**#3 Soft: **_

When Hakkai was angry, his voice became even smoother and softer, like quicksand or strangling silk.

_**#4 Pain: **_

Hakkai always felt a twinge of pain when he healed Gojyo, which was very strange, because his chi techniques never caused him pain when he did the same for anyone else; but being quick on the uptake, he soon figured out that it wasn't the chi.

_**#6 Rain: **_

They lit candles in their room once – and the lights flashed through the curtain of Gojyo's hair as he leaned forward and concealed both of them under it like a rain of fire seen through red silk.

_**#5 Run: **_

'Gojyo, run, immediately,' Hakkai said flatly as he reached one hand up to his ear, and though he would have balked at such a blatant order from anyone else, he made tracks immediately and as fast as he could, because this was Hakkai, and he knew which battles to pick.

_**#7 Chocolate: **_

Hakkai bought chocolates whenever he could, and most of them fed Goku's bottomless stomach, pilfered shamelessly from Sanzo or Gojyo; and even though Goku's keen nose told him that there was definitely more chocolate in the bag Hakkai carried, he didn't ask, because if Hakkai could put up with all their vices, he deserved a few of his own, and didn't even protest when he could smell some of it on Gojyo's breath the next morning.

_**#8 Happiness: **_

There was an odd sort of feel to just sitting, talking, with the slim excuse of a pack of cards, while Gojyo smoked like a chimney (really, that smell! Abominable) and the minutes ticked away without memory or past obstructing their smooth forward movement – he hesitated to call it happiness, because it was subtler and more complex than that.

_**#9 Telephone:**_

Gojyo spent nearly two hours nagging Sanzo to buy them all cell phones, until the priest finally yelled that he had no intention of footing Gojyo's phone sex bill; Hakkai smiled widely and cheerily declared that the chances of that were slim to none, as he and Gojyo usually slept within speaking distance of each other anyway, and greatly relished the Too Much Information look both the others adopted.

_**#10 (Ears): **_

Once, prompted by semi-suicidal curiosity, he slipped a single limiter off while Hakkai slept, and watched fascinated as shadow-vines curled over the healer's body, ears sharpening and lengthening; he replaced the limiter quickly, though not before a distinctly not-human eye had opened – but neither ever spoke of it again.

_**#11 Name: **_

It was both amusing and not that Gojyo never tripped over the name Hakkai, as Hakkai himself sometimes did, expecting some other form of address; it made sense, because Gojyo had never really attached any name to him except Hakkai, but somehow he still thought it was not right……and he gave up, for once struck by illogic

_**#12 Sensual: **_

Everyone called Gojyo sensual, but it wasn't his looks, stunning as they were, that made him so; it was the way he moved, the stride of one who was at peace, if not happy, with himself, the dangerous charm that he could turn towards anyone, the electric wit and quick smile.

_**#13 Death: **_

He watched dispassionately as each red lock of hair – that hated red – fluttered down to the floor to curl and glow like a pool of blood, like blood washed in rain, spilling over his fingers as he lifted a dead man's weight……and he thought about death.

_**#14 Sex: **_

Gojyo hated sharing a bed with anyone, even if they'd just had sex; and now, lying next to a wounded man he'd never so much as thought about kissing, he knew exactly why he had feared that intimacy.

_**#15 Touch: **_

'It's not because of you or the rain or anything,' Gojyo said, looking shifty and adorably guilty, because if there was one thing Sha Gojyo was utterly horrible at, it was being a convincing liar, 'It's just that there wasn't anything happening in the bar – no scene, no girls, no booze, ya know?' and Hakkai tried very hard not to show how touched he was, but he must have failed at it, because Gojyo stammered and grew redder and finally ducked into the bathroom to gain some composure, and Hakkai laughed and laughed.

_**#16: Weakness: **_

Gojyo was completely selfless when it came to those he cared for, undone by even the smallest kindnesses, the most trivial favours – so unused to them, he was, that he would die for a traitor even if their friendship had been one of words and not hearts – Hakkai accounted for that in his dealings with Gojyo, but could not bear to call it a weakness.

_**#17 Tears: **_

They had a huge fight over Hakkai's reckless style of fighting that ended with Gojyo trying his damnedest to drink a bar dry and Hakkai spend the evening staring out of the window blankly, open book in his lap and one hand curling over his stomach; the next three days were hell, as Gojyo was being exponentially more annoying and Hakkai staying stonily silent in the front seat; on the fourth day, Gojyo found two tears in his jacket neatly mended and Hakkai already in his room, and he had a wide grin on his face as he wheedled Sanzo into switching with him.

_**#18 Speed: **_

He had long reconciled himself to being unable to outwit Hakkai; the speed of his reactions both to words and actions was that of one who was both simpler and more complex than Gojyo was.

_**#19 Wind: **_

Watching Hakkai move was like watching the wind; swift, decisive and smooth.

_**#20 Freedom: **_

Tenpou asked him what he would do if he could do anything at all; Kenren thought for a while and said, 'Find a rule-book and break every rule in it, and maybe I'd want to go kill someone I hated, and scream insults at all the gods and……' he trailed off, and when Tenpou made a questioning sound, he just shook his head and kissed him.

_**#21 Life: **_

Hakkai was not a man who could live solely for himself; he needed someone to live for, battle for, love, and some part of him recognised this, which was why he fought so fiercely for love when he found it.

_**#22 Jealousy: **_

He knew that Hakkai was possessive, knew it intellectually – the man had slaughtered thousands, literally, for his love – but the physical reality of it didn't strike home until one evening when the girl who had been attempting to flirt with him was cut off in mid-sentence by a harsh grating sound; she turned, gasped and fled, and without her obstructing his view he could see the quiet, satisfied smile on Hakkai's face, and the five deep slashes in the wooden table, made cleanly and precisely by what just had to be claws.

_**#23 Hands: **_

After a particularly long and vicious battle, Gojyo found Hakkai sitting apart from the others, staring down at his palms distantly; he caught those hands in his and held them closed, and Hakkai blinked and returned to him.

_**#24 Taste: **_

He found his tastes running towards brunettes, brunettes with trim figures and pretty, pale faces; and when he looked into a pair of liquid dark eyes and was vaguely irritated that they weren't green, he realised why, and was promptly horrified enough that he ran out on her without a word of explanation.

_**#25 Devotion: **_

To anyone else, it would have seemed that Hakkai was the devoted one, the one who took care of Gojyo's every need and was always there for him; they never thought to question who had followed whom on this dangerous journey.

_**#26 Forever: **_

Forever was a word they didn't voice; they were too scarred and too afraid to risk tempting fate with such a reckless proclamation – but unvoiced was not the same as unthought, and looks always spoke louder where they were concerned.

_**#27 Blood: **_

There was always blood between them, trapped in red hair and red pasts and painful reminders; ignored perhaps, but never quite forgotten.

_**#28 Sickness: **_

They could have made vows, made declarations, promises and a hundred other things; sickness and health, richer or poorer, better or worse, fidelity, loyalty, honour, obedience, support, devotion, love – but in every way imaginable, they had proven that even before there had been any need or thought of such intimacy between them, and neither ever gave it any thought.

_**#29 Melody: **_

Hakkai hummed as he worked, nearly as tuneless as Gojyo, because he was usually too distracted to stick to a tune; but once, when Gojyo was particularly struck by a bit of melody, he drummed up the recollection and sang, words echoing sweetly in the kitchen, a memory of voices lifted in worship to a god he had never believed in.

_**#30 Star:**_

There were nights in the mountains, clear and inky-black skies with stars spread across them like scattered tears frozen in the ice of the land they were passing through; Hakkai always went outside to watch the stars on nights like those, although he shivered with the cold – Gojyo always tagged along, using the cigarettes as an excuse, and they stood together, which made the cold more tolerable, at least.

_**#31 Home: **_

Home had always been pretty green eyes, been Kanan, been theirs, but despite all his stubbornness and determined clinging to the past, he was forced to redefine it.

_**#32 Confusion: **_

'Make your farewells before we do this,' Gojyo said harshly, 'I won't be a replacement, won't be an escape; there must be no confusion; if you're with me, I want you with _me_.'

_**#33 Fear: **_

Hakkai only turned a full-strength Mass Murderer™ Glare on him a few times, and it made him nervous; he knew that his youkai form gave him chills on the best of days (even if another part of him could freely say that it was frighteningly sensual as well) and Hakkai in a fury was enough to have him leaping to obey, as did they all, even if Sanzo would never admit to it; and how strange it was, knowing all of his friend's past, knowing the horror and bloodlust that he was capable of, that the thought of Hakkai leaving him was the only thing about the other man that made him truly afraid.

_**#34 Lightning/Thunder: **_

Together, they were lightning and thunder; and in that practiced misdirection they fought better than they could have alone.

_**#35 Bonds: **_

Many things about his best friend had surprised Gojyo on occasion; his unflappable calm, his steely determination, his unrestrained fury; but the biggest of these surprises was that Hakkai could be really, really kinky when he wanted to.

_**#36 Market:**_

Gojyo had Definite Ideas about when his fridge was restocked, namely before the rains when the girls stayed home, and whenever he began to starve; the first time Hakkai handed him a shopping list with one of his sweet _You Wouldn't Dream Of Refusing Me, Now, Would You, Gojyo Dear, Because I Do Think You Want To See the Sunrise Tomorrow_ smiles, he sulked about it all the way to the market.

_**#37 Technology: **_

The adrenalin rush of battle and triumph faded quickly when faced with severe wounds, hunger and thirst; and though it was hardly the victory dinner Hakkai had imagined having after the end of their quest, he found he was perfectly content with some noodles Gojyo had scavenged from somewhere, leaning against banks of destroyed computers that were still crackling and smoking; and surrounded by forbidden technology, he leaned into Gojyo, shrugged at the ironies of life, and ate.

_**#38 Gift: **_

Gojyo had little ability with chi, but he eagerly took up Hakkai's offer to teach him acupressure; perhaps it was because he was so open and so physical in his affections compared to Hakkai, but his gift for the art was obviously greater than Hakkai's own.

_**#39 Smile: **_

Hakkai claimed not to remember why he had smiled at Gojyo as he lay dying, or even that he had – both knew that if Gojyo asked him why, he would have had to reply that he was glad to be dying, and the next question, inevitably, would have been one he never wanted to answer.

_**#40 Innocence:**_

There was too much knowledge in their eyes for men so young, love shattered in rejection, drowned in blood; betrayal and pain, fear and rage; and they guarded their youngest (or oldest) companion all the more fiercely for it, in the knowledge of what they had lost, which still dwelled in those innocent golden eyes.

_**#41 Completion: **_

Soiled goods together, he had told him, matter-of-fact, yes tomorrow is garbage day – there was no reason for his heart to slam against his chest and then fall utterly silent, or that feeling of utter completion, solace, to steal through him and wash away things he didn't even know he'd felt the pain of.

_**#42 Clouds: **_

Hakkai loved to teach, it filled some emotional and intellectual need in him, and Gojyo never tired of watching him come alive like that; so when he leaned against Gojyo's chest, red hair trickling down onto a green tunic, and pointed out and named every kind of cloud that was chasing across the clear blue sky, Gojyo held him and listened carefully.

_**#43 Sky: **_

Some time after defeating Kami-sama, he managed to wangle the details of why they came after him from Goku; his eyebrows shot sky-high at Goku's description of Hakkai's display of temper, and he chuckled when Goku told him that he looked almost as scary then as he did without his limiter.

_**#44 Heaven: **_

Hakkai was a realistic man, and he knew how slim his chances were of seeing heaven, and how little he desired that place, having known its essential injustice – but he could find a haven, and that was more honest, at least.

_**#45 Hell: **_

'"Perhaps this planet is another planet's hell,"' Tenpou had quoted once, and as he saw Nataku being led away, broken and bloodied from yet another battle, he couldn't help but agree.

_**#46 Sun: **_

They had to make an unscheduled stop when Hakkai suffered from sunstroke; and though both Sanzo and Goku noticed how Gojyo hovered anxiously over the unconscious Hakkai, all three of them neglected to tell the healer when he recovered the next day.

_**#47 Moon: **_

Cold, silver light glimmering off cold silver limiters, casting highlights into spiky dark hair, throwing emerald green eyes into deep shadow – he looked unworldly, unbearably distant, and it made Gojyo's breath catch.

_**#48 Waves: **_

Gojyo's voice was as soothing as the sound of waves when he whispered sleepily into Hakkai's ears, hypnotic, lulling; and his hands traced fire on his skin in delicious contrast.

_**#49 Hair: **_

They had both cut their hair in mourning for the dead; when Hakkai returned, Gojyo decided that it was time to let it grow out again.

_**#50 Supernova: **_

There were two ways for a star to die, Tenpou had read once; the lesser stars dimmed and faded into obscurity, and the greater ones immolated themselves in a self-made, glorious destruction, a negation of the universe's power over them so complete that they refused to even die on its terms – and if they were going to die, that would be the way to go.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Regarding #35: you know it's true. Just _look_ at him. Doesn't he seem (and my keyboard typed seme instead of seem here, incidentally, which I found wildly funny and simply _had_ to share) a closet freak? Thanks to moonsilver, sohmamomiji and EoS – repeat reviewers! Whee. Hm-hm. This is the second-last (phew. These things are _work_) and the last will be 10K, so.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: chapter dedicated to sohmamomiji: hope the 10K lives up to the rest!

_**#1 Ring: **_

There was a doorbell next to Tenpou's door, but it was unused; the marshal hated the sound (although, in typical Tenpou fashion, he'd never quite got around to removing it), and nobody who valued their life would ever ring it; the ones who didn't have to fear his wrath never bothered with the whole politeness thing anyway.

_**#2 Hero: **_

'I'm no hero,' Kenren said, shrugging; 'I've no great cause, nothing to live for, and you're no damsel in distress,' and Tenpou laughed and told him that he was an idiot with principles, and that was the main precondition.

_**#3 Memory: **_

He fought when the memories of Tenpou were stripped from him, fought with the rabid ferocity of a wounded animal to keep them with him, fought with all his immortal soul; each memory held fast to himself – laughing in his office, fighting, arguing, plotting, lying in bed, drinking, sneaking out of meetings – and the taste in his mouth as each of those memories were inevitably stripped from him was bitter, bitter.

_**#4 Boxes: **_

Kenren lived out of boxes; he was transferred so often and led such a nomadic lifestyle that he rarely bothered to make himself feel at home in any of the quarters he was assigned, but his things slowly gravitated towards Tenpou's office and rooms: pens, bullets, chewing gum, spare uniforms, the odd book or two, a toothbrush, a comb, the indispensable hairspray, the work he couldn't actually be bothered to do unless Tenpou reminded him, the few pictures of memorable times that he chose to keep……in a while, it became an open secret that Kenren almost lived at Tenpou's, but the general was probably the last one to realise it, so quietly and unnoticeably had it happened.

_**#5 Potatoes: **_

After seeing Tenpou have strong coffee instead of a square meal for the seventeenth time because he'd been distracted during mealtime, Kenren irritably enquired whether he was just planning to starve himself to death – 'I can mash potatoes,' Tenpou offered with a bright smile, and Kenren groaned and learned to cook.

_**#6 Hurricane: **_

Kenren was like a hurricane, fierce and savage and allowing for no covering, no concealment, harsh whipping wind and lashing rain; he believed this firmly until the day he stopped struggling and let go, and discovered that the wind that could lash could also caress, that the need for openness was matched by the desire to protect, and the rain that stung like needles also gave life to dying things.

_**#7 Wings: **_

Birds had wings, and they could fly where they willed, alight where they willed; they were free as even gods were not, and Tenpou resented that so very fiercely at times.

_**#8 Cold: **_

Both men hid their true nature within its opposite; Kenren's apparent superficiality and wild, unrestrained imagination concealed a quick and calm mind, while behind Tenpou's cold and collected exterior lay a hotter temper than the dark-haired general could dream of having.

_**#9 Red: **_

'Maybe I'll dye my hair,' Kenren said playfully, 'What would look better, bright blue or green?' Tenpou eyed him and corrected, 'Red. It suits you,' and it was unfortunate that the two who would have found that the funniest thing in the world were five hundred years away.

_**#10 Drink: **_

'I love you, you know,' Kenren said casually as they drank together, and the look he gave Tenpou was part bold, part questioning, part fear and part raw, open need, and Tenpou smiled at him and replied, 'Likewise,' and they continued to drink, both relieved that that was out of the way.

_**#11 Midnight: **_

The first time they slept together, Kenren had rolled out of the bed and crept through the darkened corridors out of sheer habit, quite sure that it was the last time, not waiting for Tenpou to throw him out; and every time he stayed a little longer, a little longer, waiting for some reaction, some rejection, until one night he slept very deeply and woke up to find Tenpou latched onto him like a limpet, clutching him with both arms, leg thrown over his, chin against midnight hair, breath ruffling dishevelled spikes, almost smothering his face in his throat……

He was even more surprised when his only reaction to Tenpou's possessive grip was a sleepy _damn, what took me so long?_

_**#12 Temptation: **_

He tried to resist, really he did, but Tenpou had never been good at controlling his impulses or denying himself pleasure, and Kenren was temptation incarnate.

_**#13 View: **_

There were a few places where they could observe Down Below directly; Tenpou never visited them, since letting his preferences be known so clearly was dangerous, but his library was filled with their literature, their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams, and sometimes he dared to share them.

_**#14 Music: **_

Tenpou hummed when he worked, soft and toneless and strangely haunting; Kenren often found himself pushing his chair closer, close enough to smell the faint ink-paper-tea scent and hear those wordless songs, and later closer still, once it became clear that Tenpou didn't mind at all.

_**#15 Silk: **_

There were three distinct impressions Kenren had of Tenpou's bed; first, it took him nearly a year to realise it _was_ a bed, until Tenpou swept the books off it in the middle of a hurried disrobing; second, almost immediately after, when he was surprised to find the covers made of fine silk as they slid against his back; and third, a few weeks later, when he discovered the small, deadly-looking daggers buried under the bed; it seemed a fair summary of the man himself.

_**#16 Cover: **_

A few days after he met Tenpou, he'd challenged him to a sparring session, hand-to-hand, confidently stating that the thin, pretty-looking man hadn't had a day's exercise in a few centuries at least; the result was a very pointed and painful lesson in not judging books by their covers – Kenren was appropriately apologetic, and Tenpou forgave him before the bruises finished healing.

_**#17 Promise:**_

There were no promises, of course…they both knew who they were, what they were, knew that the games they played with the world they hated would eventually lead to their death, and it was unfair to drag the other down with them as well.

_**#18 Dream: **_

The marshal was pretty, yeah, pretty like a girl, but better, and he could out-drink and out-think Kenren, and the more he watched Tenpou the more sure he was that he'd fallen madly in some sort of lust with him, or maybe it was worse, because since when had his head taken precedence over his libido? – but it had, and it was, and Tenpou was different, somehow, was something else, was……definitely never going to pay him any attention, because he'd have to get his head out of those goddamn books first, which was never gonna happen, so he just watched the man, because hey, a guy could dream.

_**#19 Candle: **_

Tenpou once lit a tall candle in the library (pooh-poohing Kenren's nervousness over the sea of things catching fire) and stared intently at the flickering flame for a full hour; when Kenren finally snapped and asked him what the hell he was doing and what was so damn interesting about that candle, he only replied, 'This is life; this is what we are,' and then he leaned forward and blew the candle out with a very gentle breath.

_**#20 Talent: **_

Tenpou prided himself on his unflappability, and Kenren on his ability to annoy anything breathing; they were equally talented at it, and practiced extensively on each other – as a result of which the half of heaven that didn't think they were lovers thought that they were blood enemies.

_**#21 Silence: **_

It took some familiarity for him to have a real conversation with anyone, but he only allowed one person to see his silences.

_**#22 Journey: **_

'Don't you get it,' Kenren snapped, and left _we're going to die _unsaid as they sat together, under siege; Tenpou smiled, serenely and in a way that suggested that he knew something more even when Kenren _knew _there was no reprieve after this – and all he said was, 'You know, I believe our journey's just beginning.'

_**#23 Fire: **_

Watching Tenpou practice shooting always reminded Kenren why he followed the man; the absolute concentration, the care – he could even say, the love – he put into each movement, the precision, the detached calm with which he acted, every motion deliberate and flowing and innate, culminating in that brief moment when he fired; and then it would pass, and the harmless scatterbrain would return, but Kenren never forgot, and his breath never failed to stop dead.

_**#24 Strength: **_

He hit Li Touten, a cracking punch with all his strength, and cursed himself while he did it, because there under the sincere outrage there had been an element of cold calculation; while he had struck him because of his anger at what had happened, others would think it was because of the insult, and he and Kenren could have a brief reprieve, at least, before the rumours began again – was there a moment, he wondered, when that rationality would ever leave?

_**#25 Mask: **_

Kenren had no use for masks and pretences, said precisely what he thought and did precisely as he said; it attracted Tenpou as north calls south.

_**#26 Ice:**_

Calculation ran bone-deep in Tenpou, despite all his recklessness; he was cold and clear and soundless as ice, and it chilled Kenren at times how easily he was able to make himself a pawn in his manipulations.

_**#27 Fall: **_

Kenren had never had much interest in what was Down Below, reasoning that it was bound to be as boring as heaven was, until the day Tenpou dragged him down to the lower world on what he claimed was a mission (the entirety of it seemed to consist of walking through crunching fall leaves), and they threw handfuls of red and gold and brown leaves in the air, and rolled in it, and laughed like little children, relishing a change that their world would never experience; 'We're doing this again someday,' Kenren declared, sprawled on the ground, panting with an excess of hilarity, a red leaf resting on his cheek, and Tenpou's eyes softened as he lay next to him, and he said, very quietly, 'Yes.'

_**#28 Forgotten: **_

He'd had odd fragmented dreams all his life, of smoke and armies and piles of books and a laughing devil of a man, and wondered why Gojyo reminded him of those dreams when it was perfectly obvious that he didn't have blue eyes.

_**#29 Dance: **_

It was easy to tell when Tenpou was truly interested in something; his body would still, as if he were conserving his interest, his hands would fold, index fingers tapping slowly, and his eyes danced.

_**#30 Body: **_

He wanted to be the first to die – he, the survivor, the manipulator, wanted to be the first to die, because he was utterly, completely selfish, and he wanted to die with his pride intact, his sanity undamaged and his heart in one piece, and he was fairly sure that seeing Kenren's body would not permit any of those.

_**#31 Sacred: **_

Tenpou had long become immune to the word sacred, for too many things were given that name in Heaven that were anything but – but still, when he felt Kenren gain that rare gentle touch, forsaking passion for tenderness and pleasure for fulfilment, there was simply no other adjective he could apply to the emotion those hands, that mouth, those eyes radiated.

_**#32 Farewells: **_

There was no time for elaborate farewells, the end exploded upon them almost before they were aware it was coming; but that didn't matter, because in lives like theirs there was little room for farewells, so filled with second meetings were they.

_**#33 World: **_

Tenpou lived in a world of his own, in fierce denial of the one he was forced to inhabit, hating it and wanting to shape it at the same time, while Kenren took a grim, determined kind of pleasure in life, with the rationale that well, if they were all screwed, he'd have some fun before dying of boredom – and while neither would ever agree with the other, they shared a dislike of their world that drew them together.

_**#34 Formal: **_

Neither of them really bothered with the formalities of a relationship; they were, they were together, the rest they were content to leave undefined.

_**#35 Fever: **_

Those who lived in heaven did not fall ill, built as their bodies were for a different existence, and Tenpou had only the most intellectual understanding of it; but this burning he felt, the dizziness and weakness and slightly boneless sensation, it was almost a fever, but its cause was pleasure, not illness, and the results were, he decided, altogether more desirable.

_**#36 Laugh: **_

Every time he heard the rumours that Tenpou played wife to him, he couldn't help but laugh, because if anything, he was the one who played the nagging housewife to that consummate slob.

_**#37 Lies: **_

'This isn't really a permanent thing,' Kenren said almost desperately, and Tenpou agreed calmly, because the circumstances were all wrong, they would never work, and it was probably just a momentary madness after all.

_**#38 Forever: **_

They thought they had forever, but as it turned out……

_**#39 Overwhelmed: **_

His vocabulary never failed to simultaneously irritate, amuse and overwhelm Kenren, to the point where he invested in a pocket dictionary; Tenpou immediately took it upon himself to use words that the dictionary didn't contain, and as time went by, he often slipped into Kenren-speak around others, which got them both some strange looks – especially when Kenren understood him.

_**#40 Whisper: **_

As brash and loud and strikingly _present _as Kenren always was, it was hard to imagine the quiet, tender side of him that so rarely saw the light of day; a strand of deep thought and deep feeling that whispered within all his posturing.

_**#42 Talk: **_

Kenren was a creature of society, always willing to chat up a girl or pal with the guys or engage in quick banter; it took him several months and his first real friendship to realise that all those times he had talked to those nameless, unimportant people, he'd never actually said anything.

_**#41 Wait: **_

'Wait,' Tenpou said urgently, pressing four harsh fingers into Kenren's cheek and a thumb to his jaw as if he wanted to brand their prints into him, '_Wait_,' and Kenren closed his hand over those fingers and nodded, knowing that this was all the goodbye and all the declarations they were allowed.

_**#43 Search: **_

They were all searching for something, all four of them, for some meaning, some truth in their lives; there was an emptiness in each of them that could not be filled, erased except by losing everything they had in the hope of finding everything they wanted.

_**#44 Hope: **_

Neither of them was that fond of fooling themselves as to actually hope, but they hated, and that served as an acceptable substitute, as fuel for wanting to change everything.

_**#45 Eclipse: **_

He was content to remain behind the scenes, comfortably eclipsed by the glitter of others; but he had his own brand of light, like sunlight on steel.

_**#46 Gravity: **_

'Why do you stick with me?' Kenren asked him once, in that blunt way of his; 'I'm nothing but trouble,' and though Tenpou simply smiled and said nothing, he privately reflected that it would have been easier to defy gravity.

_**#47 Highway: **_

The first time Tenpou heard of Kenren, it was when someone mentioned that the unruly general was on the highway to getting himself killed if his conduct was anything to go by; Tenpou had privately reflected that at the very least it would be more interesting than living in eternal ennui, and taken an instant liking to the man by reputation alone.

_**#48 Unknown: **_

Tenpou was a man who relished the abstract, who thought in clear logical lines, abhorred irrationality, disliked things that he couldn't analyse and categorise; being with Kenren was a daily experience in the terrors of the unknown for him, but then, he'd always relished a challenge.

_**#49 Lock: **_

Little things, little things, but with Tenpou there was always a method to his madness; such as the way his window would be mysteriously unlocked every time there was a proposal he didn't like awaiting his approval on his desk, and the way the lawn sprinklers were always aimed in there in the afternoons, and the way Kenren was always seen wandering in the general vicinity so he could laugh his head off.

_**#50 Breathe: **_

'What would it be like to live, truly _live,_' Tenpou whispered, 'to breathe not because I choose to, but because it is a necessity, to need air so badly that if I stopped, even for a little while, it would taste as sweet as honey when I finally surrendered and drew it into me again–' and he stopped, because one look at Kenren's eyes showed him he understood.

A/N: longest chapter yet, and my favourite among the five, with the third chapter a close second. Thanks to my reviewers, as always: Amael21, AmyLB22, Blue-eyes-green, EoS, LittleLinor, monsoonblues, moonsilver (who is definitely Best Reviewer on this fic, for making me laugh several times), sohmamomiji – and for those who review this one, my thanks are still with you. Oh, and if anyone knows of any other lists like this, please let me know or email them to me – DO NOT PM me, because ffnet hates my computer and will not be nice and send me those. You're free to come up with one, and you will be credited I think I'm getting hooked on these.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This list was given to me by A'mael, and is thus dedicated to here. And there is a 232 word sentence here. I'm fairly sure it's grammatical. Maybe.

1_**1. Aberration**_

He dismissed the sideways looks as coincidences, the hesitant words as awkwardness, the subtle touches as friendship, the unhesitating loyalty as some sort of aberrant caring; the kiss, though, he could not explain away as anything other than what it was.

_**2. Arrogance**_

Though many accused Gojyo of arrogance and impertinence, it was Hakkai who was truly arrogant, for all his modesty and unassuming nature – his was the arrogance of the intellectual, the arrogance of a judge.

_**3. Branch**_

Kenren had a habit of walking around bare to the waist in his (official) leisure hours, and the first time Tenpou noticed, he walked straight into a low branch while shamelessly ogling him – he blamed his mishap on the book he was holding in his hands, and was moderately relieved when Kenren believed him.

_**4. Berate**_

They all knew that Gojyo was libidinous in the extreme, and that he tended to dislike being denied pleasurable company (to use Hakkai's words); still, when the level of gropage escalated as they spent night after night in those damn mountains in cramped quarters, all three of them felt it necessary to yell at him, and his claim that he was suffering from 'Hakkai-withdrawal' did very little to help his case, even though it was most possibly true.

_**5. Callous**_

Hakkai had a callous sort of disregard for his own life, and this was perhaps what Gojyo feared the most.

_**6. Crave**_

He had come to crave him, this dark-haired man sleeping soundly half under him, blue eyes closed, serene in sleep; and this was a mistake, this was dangerous, but he was already too deep to even think about letting go.

_**7. Detract**_

Gojyo had a sensual quality to him that blazed through anything he said or did; how else, Hakkai wondered, could he ever have found a girl while wearing those horrendous pants?

_**8. Demur**_

When Hakkai actually listened to Gojyo's instructions to rest without demur, it was a sure sign that something was wrong.

_**9. Egg**_

One mealtime had degenerated into a food-fight, impressive even by their standards; 'They say that eggs make the hair grow better, you know,' Hakkai commented cheerily and unsympathetically when an omelette landed squarely on Gojyo's head; this marked a doubly momentous occasion, being both the first time that Hakkai had experienced the fan firsthand, and the first time that Gojyo had been on the correct end of it.

_**10. Eyeliner**_

Goku teased him about it, of course, and even Sanzo deigned to lower the ever-present newspaper, raise that ever-immaculate eyebrow and pitch in with a carefully calculated jab or two, and Hakkai, of course, was laughing madly behind his polite façade, which was cracking at the edges (and Gojyo glowered at him, because it was all Hakkai's fault – how was he to know that Hakkai's idea of a forfeit at a poker tournament would take _this _form, and since when had Hakkai been into putting make-up on him, and who was the resident perv in this group anyway?); Gojyo lasted until breakfast, when he retreated to his room to sulk until nightfall, when Hakkai took him his dinner – Goku accompanied him, having dutifully promised not to tease, rag, roll about in hysterical laughter or otherwise traumatise Gojyo further; when Hakkai placed the tray before the curtain of red hair through which red eyes peered balefully, he leaned over and whispered something in Gojyo's ear that had him grinning madly and becoming inexplicably cheerful for the rest of the evening despite the eyeliner that Hakkai had artfully spread over his eyes – and the next morning, when Goku saw them both slipping discreetly into a clothing chain for women, he decided that he didn't want to know, not at all, at all, ever, nope, because he wasn't interested in being scarred for life.

_**11. Fallacy**_

Nearly everyone succumbed to the notion that Tenpou was playing wife to Kenren, which suited the Gensui just fine; if they saw him as being weak and submissive, it would be that much easier to catch them off-guard because they were underestimating him.

_**12. Fright**_

Kenren often found his eccentric superior sprawled asleep on his desk, a sprawling white form in a sea of leather-bound books, and it was as he was half-carrying, half-dragging Tenpou back to his bed, his nose buried in unkempt brown hair and his arms crossed around a thin, muscled chest, that he realised (with a dim sort of horror) that he was attracted to the man.

_**13. Glare**_

On days when the constant strain of driving and the glare of the sun were simply too much and his eyes and head pounded relentlessly, Gojyo, without discussion, gently pressed and massaged his head until the pain receded somewhat, and Hakkai relaxed and let someone else be the healer for once.

_**14. Grind**_

The daily grind of paperwork and records was Konzen's domain, not his, and he did his work more so he could monitor events than out of any sense of duty; he was therefore vaguely surprised when he found himself taking on some of Kenren's work as well – because really, the man had no sense of organisation – simply because it pleased him when he did it.

_**15. Humour**_

It never failed to irritate him when Hakkai turned his Humour The Children face on him, all sweet and indulgent in the most incredibly patronising way, and with his trademark perversity, he went against anything Hakkai said when he did that; never realising that Hakkai knew, and ensured that it happened only when it suited him.

_**16. Handcuffs**_

They never did get around to retrieving the other pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs from Goku and Sanzo, because Hakkai deemed it Unseemly To Ask and Gojyo (who took a full two days to recover from the shock of Goku's request, and a week to stop chortling when Sanzo was the one caught rubbing discreetly at his hands) was Told Not To in Most Uncertain Terms; but that was okay, Gojyo decided a couple of nights later, because Hakkai had travelled widely and read more and was innately creative, and one pair was a lot of fun too.

_**17. Island**_

Kenren could count the number of times he had set foot in the library before knowing Tenpou on one hand, for it had seemed a boring place, full of stale and musty things that held no life; but when he watched him come alive there, listened to animated monologues on some strange philosophy or another, he began to see it as his lover saw it – an island of serenity, and an opening to a world as unlike their own as it was possible to be – and it was then that he began to need it, both the world and the man.

_**18. Irate**_

Gojyo mentioned that Sanzo seemed a little more irate recently, and Goku looked at him with a mixture of awe and amusement and said, 'Oh gods, you're turning into Hakkai,' and Gojyo looked absurdly pleased about it for the rest of the evening.

_**19. Joker**_

'Gojyo, if you insist on trying to convince me that a pack of cards has four jokers just _one more time…_'

_**20. Junction**_

There was a particular spot at the join of Gojyo's neck and shoulder, perfect for resting his forehead on, and sometimes, when he was safely asleep, it was equally perfect to press his lips against.

_**21. Knob**_

Tenpou barely noticed that Kenren was left-handed, but there were always little things that brought it to his notice; the way he fumbled with doorknobs when he was drunk, turning them the wrong way, or the fact that his zippers were always (infuriatingly) turned the wrong way for him to get at easily.

_**22. Kiwi**_

The first time Gojyo received the F5-Hakkai-Glare-O'-Doom (which was normally reserved for when Hakkai was really, really pissed off, like when he was fighting shikigami-users and jackass Western priests and occasionally Sanzo's laundry) was when Goku proudly presented a plate of kiwis he had done something exotic (and in Gojyo's opinion, disgusting) with under Hakkai's tutelage; Gojyo began to remark loudly that there was no way he was going to eat something that looked like _tha-_, when the drill-bit frown hit him square between the eyes and he was actually left floundering in the middle of an unfinished word.

_**23. Legal**_

'That,' Kenren wheezed, burying his flushed face in the pillows, 'was definitely illegal,' and Tenpou's large, satisfied smirk went up a few notches as he replied, 'Of course it's not legal – in twenty-three countries, no less – I checked.'

_**24. Lanky**_

He looked at the graceful man beside him, matured by age and strength, and wondered just where the lanky teenager who'd picked him up off the road had gone.

_**25. Merit**_

Hakkai prided himself on being a rational man; he was a man who always weighed his options carefully and cautiously, who thought with his head and never made any rash decisions; he was a man who tried to understand the merits and demerits of every action; he was a man who considered consequences before he indulged himself…

…he was currently sitting on a computer desk in Houtou Castle, arms and legs wrapped around a redhead who was trying earnestly to undo his shirt with his teeth, and largely succeeding…

Sanzo was right; Gojyo was a bad influence.

_**26. Miscreant**_

Even if he hadn't known, he'd still have placed Hakkai as a schoolteacher; he had the teacher-knows-best attitude down pat, and it was with the greatest of difficulty that Gojyo could stop feeling like a misbehaving five-year-old when that disapproving gaze pinned him.

_**27. Noble**_

In years to come, after they returned, people would refer to their travels west as a noble quest, and to them as heroes; and while they knew intellectually that that was probably what it was, the sheer unromance of their journey made it impossible not to laugh at it…

_**28. Nefarious**_

…although, Gojyo said, it became considerably less funny once they stopped with the free drinks and started with the 'Rid us of these nefarious criminals, save us from those treacherous bandits, destroy the evil youkai, oh mighty Sanzo-ikkou,' and Sanzo kept telling the two of them to do the jobs because he was 'busy'.

_**29. Ornate**_

There was something incongruous about Kenren, non-regulation outfit, cigarette, skull and all, strolling through the ornate and decorous halls of the army offices as if he owned them; incongruous, and to Tenpou, endlessly amusing.

_**30. Obsidian**_

When the mood took him, Tenpou talked endlessly about things that Kenren found incredibly uninteresting, chattering aimlessly to distract himself from the tedium of his work; on the one day he finally snapped and threw a pretty black paperweight at his superior's head, Tenpou caught it in one hand and asked him if he knew that obsidian was produced by volcanic activity – whereupon Kenren gave up.

_**31. Prance**_

There was a faint tightness, a hidden tension in Gojyo as the youkai children giggled and pranced around him in innocent delight; hidden beneath the affection, there was pain, need for what he had never had, need for what his heritage ensured he could never have, and even if Gojyo thought nobody saw it, Hakkai was there.

_**32. Preen**_

The first time Gojyo made a (edible) delicious meal after (weeks) a bit of training from Hakkai was a momentous occasion for the Sanzo-ikkou; 'You shouldn't be the one doing all the work,' he'd mumbled when Hakkai asked him why he suddenly wanted to learn, and although Gojyo's preening after every successful meal was intolerable, Hakkai didn't really mind.

_**33. Quirk**_

To Gojyo, who had had no real friends in so long, the simplest things that Hakkai took for granted were new and wonderful; the arch of an eyebrow at an in-joke, the casual 'we' instead of 'I', the little quirks that made what was between them _different_ from what he shared with others.

_**34. Quarter**_

To the casual observer it seemed that Hakkai was the more compassionate, the gentler of the two – but these lasted only so far; he was the one who gave no quarter once those he held dear were at stake, inflexible and utterly merciless.

_**35. Refer**_

Gojyo tried to apologise for leaving the night they returned after defeating Kami-sama, stumbling over words and contradictory emotions; 'It's nothing; I would have done the same,' Hakkai said simply, and they never referred to it again.

_**36. Restrain**_

'Damn it, Tenpou, when you said I needed to learn restraint I didn't think there were going to be handcuffs involved!'

_**37. Slap**_

'Ah, yes, I was wondering when you would get to me,' Hakkai said brightly within Gojyo's arms, eyes crinkled shut, mouth tight against pain and body cold and stiff, and the realisation of the depth of their misunderstanding felt like a slap across Gojyo's face.

_**38. Semantics**_

Being around Tenpou taught Kenren to watch his words; what was mere semantics to others became terribly important once you were habitually with someone who could bend words until they screamed for mercy.

_**39. Timbre**_

He knew every tone and every inflection of Gojyo's voice, and the resonance of that deep purr through his ribcage and onto Hakkai's mouth as it wandered over him was his favourite.

_**40. Tame**_

He was Sha Gojyo, the irresistible sex god, the beast in bed; the wonder of a generation, the boon to all fangirls, the ultimate star; the supreme and wild bachelor, untamed and free; the man nobody could hold down, the man who couldn't be pegged or disciplined; the man with so many notches on his bedpost that it looked like a bomb victim; the man who had seen more booty than a toilet seat and never stayed the night; and it was absolutely impossible for Goku to have suggested that he seemed to follow Hakkai around like a faithful puppy, because that just wasn'–

'Gojyo,' Hakkai said mildly, 'don't you think you've had enough to drink for tonight?'

And as he found himself getting (staggering) to his feet almost automatically, and Hakkai's smug little smirk (which he tried so hard to hide) as he draped himself all over the slightly shorter man (in an attempt to hide the fact that he wasn't entirely sure how far the floor was), one part of him admitted mournfully (although the rest would rather be put on the rack than even think it) that apparently the great sex beast was rather firmly leashed after all.

_**41. Skew**_

In retrospect, Hakkai found it fitting that the first time he (remembered) saw Gojyo, he was upside-down in his perspective; everything about Gojyo seemed distorted somehow, seemed something that didn't fit; Gojyo represented a skewed reality, a strange misshapen world where he had inexplicably survived despite his will, despite his fate, despite his love, despite everything.

_**42. Loquacious**_

The more nervous Gojyo was, the faster he talked, and the faster he talked, the more likely he was to wind up chewing on boot; which amused Hakkai no end, of course.

_**43. Urbane**_

On an intellectual level, Hakkai was always fascinated by the sheer skill with which Gojyo flirted with women; the suave banter, subtle moves, and the sincere, dangerous charm he radiated – all the more deadly because it was real and strangely honest, how deftly he moved and spoke and did at all the right times until they fell into that snare, charmed and dazzled……

On an intellectual level, yes, but sometimes Hakkai was not intellectual, and he rarely stayed long.

_**44. Unctuous**_

Tenpou had long been accustomed to the unctuous grovelings of his underlings and the poorly-hidden contempt of his superiors; it was refreshing to meet someone who took people exactly as they were, and gave as much or as little respect as the person deserved – and after his initial startlement at being addressed routinely as 'hey', he found himself rather charmed by it.

_**45. Vexed**_

'Vexed? Seriously, _vexed? _Hakkai, why can't you _talk_ like normal people even when we're having a fight?!'

_**46. Voodoo**_

He'd thought Tenpou was kidding about the little straw dolls at the time, but when Li Touten was limping discreetly for weeks afterwards, Kenren made two mental notes: the first being to confiscate some of Tenpou's more exotic reading material, and second, to never, ever, ever get on his bad side.

_**47. Warp**_

Hakkai had the most incredibly warped sense of humour Gojyo had ever known, and he had a gift for phrasing things just so; he was fairly certain he'd never think of the word _humidity _without feeling mildly revolted ever again.

_**48. Whisk**_

It was perhaps typical of them that the first thing Gojyo did when they finally made it back to their little house was sling his jacket over the bed and flop down on it, while Hakkai whisked out a broom from his packs and began to dust.

_**49. Yelp**_

He had always known that Hakkai was possessed of a badly-hidden temper and a catty sort of vengefulness for minor wrongs, but the third time he stepped out of bed hung-over and yelped as his feet plunged into a bucket of cold water that had 'accidentally' been left there by his psychotic roommate, he decided reluctantly that maybe it really was simpler to just take the couch when he came home drunk after all.

_**50 Yellow**_

He could see why Goku called Sanzo his sun, that glowing mane of hair did evoke that image – which led him to wonder what he could call Hakkai; he regretfully discarded chocolate and emeralds, the one too soft and the other too lifeless, before deciding that Hakkai was Hakkai and the names made no difference anyway.

Ridiculously long A/N: regarding number 46: I know that voodoo is a LOT more complex than sticking pins in things, but hey, literary license. I will leave it to your imagination where the pins were, but considering it was Kenren in charge of the pins there are limited locations imaginable 47 is a reference to Against the Stream. Or Gunlock. Points to those who find the reference to Sanzolocks. #21 (knob) – the comment is true – I have trouble with doorknobs and locks myself (yes, I'm left-handed). #25 Merit kind of references Alphabets, the E chapter, in case you want to know the background (and what happened after). Not trying to plug, but it just…happened.

And so…what are the faves?


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